Get to know: Dear Paris and their teutonic synthpop

Dear Paris are Stefan Bächle (vocals & guitar), Michael Kreibohm (synthesizers, guitar & bass), Tobias Riethmüller (bass & synthesizers) and Mathias Völkel (drums & percussion). As you may have guessed by their names, they're not french but german. But let them tell the story:

Where are you from?

Tobi: We're from Stuttgart, Germany.

How do you know each other?

Michael: We pretty much found one another over the Internet. Stefan and I first met in 2006 and were in a band that split up shortly after, but we got back together in 2008 to form Dear Paris. Tobi auditioned to be our new bassist a year later and we had known Mathias from shows with his former band.

Any specific relation to Paris?

Michael: Not really, no. It just has a nice sound to it and it's easy to remember.

Is your music directed at Paris Hilton?

Stefan: It’s not. Otherwise we’d be called Dear Hilton. But it would be awesome to get an EP review by Miss Hilton! Awesome idea! We’ll send her a copy right after the interview!

What does your recording process look like?

Michael: Although it's become pretty standard to complete the entire recording process at home, we had a somewhat old-fashioned approach to the whole EP and actually booked a studio for three days.

Tobi: We recorded demo versions of everything at home first to make sure we’d laid down all the details in advance to save some time in the studio, but of course we still ran out of time.

Michael: Yeah, those three days turned out to be just enough to record everything. Fortunately, our sound engineer was amazing and let me go back there whenever we both were available so we could re-record bits and pieces and mix the whole thing.

Stefan: We actually had to stop recording the vocals after the first song and I had to come back in after a week or so because I had caught a pretty serious cold. So that’s one reason why it took that long to get it done. The entire production took us about three months, but we think taking our time with this record definitely paid off.

Are you working on a full-length album?

Stefan: Well, releasing an album is a long-term goal, obviously, but I think we've just come to realize how much sense albums make in a practical way. I mean, there was a lot of work involved in getting this EP out, and it's just four tracks. Especially when you're considering a physical release, both formats cost the same but you can't really charge 10 bucks for an EP, can you? An album release won't happen anytime soon, but I reckon it's more likely than another EP at this point.

What are your major influences?

Michael: It's always hard to pin that sort of thing down, but right now I really enjoy the likes of Holy Ghost!, Tesla Boy, Fenech-Soler and a lot of music from the 80s, such as the early Madonna albums. Generally, I can get inspired by the weirdest things. The trick is just to steer the initial idea into the right direction.